''Pharsophorus'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of borhyaenoid

sparassodont Sparassodonta (from Greek to tear, rend; and , gen. , ' tooth) is an extinct order of carnivorous metatherian mammals native to South America, related to modern marsupials. They were once considered to be true marsupials, but are now thought ...

that inhabited South America during the Middle to Late Oligocene epoch.''Pharsophorus''
at

Fossilworks Fossilworks was a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world. History Fossilworks was cr ...

.org

Taxonomy

Originally, ''Pharsophorus'' was thought to be a borhyaenid, and was even considered to be the ancestor of '' Borhyaena'', ''Acrocyon'', and ''Arctodictis'', but later phylogenetic analyses have shown that it is not a member of the

Borhyaenidae Borhyaenidae is an extinct metatherian family of low-slung, heavily built predatory mammals in the order Sparassodonta. Borhyaenids are not true marsupials, but members of a sister taxon, Sparassodonta. Like most metatherians, borhyaenids and oth ...

and is only more distantly related to these forms. Remains of ''Pharsophorus'' are known from the

Sarmiento Formation The Sarmiento Formation (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Formación Sarmiento''), in older literature described as the Casamayor Formation, is a geological formation in Chubut Province, Argentina, in central Patagonia, which spans around 30 million y ...

of the provinces of Mendoza, Santa Cruz, and

Chubut Chubut may refer to: * Chubut Province Chubut ( from Tehuelche language, Tehuelche 'transparent'; ) is a provinces of Argentina, province in southern Argentina, situated between the 42nd parallel south (the border with Río Negro Province), ...

in Argentina, as well as the Salla Formation at the fossil site of Salla in western Bolivia. The species ''"Pharsophorus" antiquus'', formerly assigned to this genus, was eventually made the type species of a separate genus ''Australohyaena''.

References

Sparassodonta Oligocene mammals of South America Deseadan Paleogene Argentina Fossils of Argentina Paleogene Bolivia Fossils of Bolivia Fossil taxa described in 1897 Taxa named by Florentino Ameghino Prehistoric mammal genera Sarmiento Formation {{paleo-mammal-stub